


The Prince of Salt

by Rawrkie



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: AU, All the ladies love Sylvanas, Alternate Universe, Darnassus, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Gays are everywhere, Jaina just needs some sleep, Jaina might run out of whiskey, Lesbian Jaina, Lesbian Sex, Lesbian Sylvanas, Lesbian Tyrande, Lots of boats, Prince of Silvermoon, Queen Lireesa, Queen Tyrande, Short Sylvanas, Shortvanas, Smolvanas, So many ships, Swearing, Sylvanas Sandwich, Sylvanas is insufferable, Sylvanas the heart breaker, Sylvanas the ladykiller, Taelia also likes to take care of Admiral Jaina, Taelia likes to say fuck, The Lord Admiral, Tyrande and Sylvanas are problematic, Tyrande is big mad, Tyrande's stubbornness rivals Jaina's, Useless Lesbians, Vereesa is a narc, Zandalar, lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29642604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rawrkie/pseuds/Rawrkie
Summary: All she wanted was a little freedom - in the form of maps, a faulty compass, and her trustworthy sloop. A mysterious venture, the traveler had promised. The dive of a lifetime. But no one warned her that it was Kul Tiran wreckage, or that the Lord Admiral herself was patrolling for pirates in the name of the crown. It also doesn’t help that her own mother is conspiring against her with a past lover. And her baby sister’s a narc.Or: Sylvanas is insufferable, Jaina might run out of whiskey, and Tyrande is big mad.
Relationships: Jaina Proudmoore/Sylvanas Windrunner, Tyrande Whisperwind/Sylvanas Windrunner
Comments: 56
Kudos: 102





	1. Between Sun and Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JunkerJackrabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JunkerJackrabbit/gifts).



**Order of interrogation**

#1 - Never enter armed. 

Before she enters the brig, Lieutenant Fordragon motions for the Lord Admiral’s weapon, her arcane focus to be handed over; a habitual practice.

She passed her staff to her Lieutenant before proceeding down the steps, getting rid of her visual tell. The prisoner doesn’t need to know the extent of her ability. Her main weapon within, easily accessible, invisible. Her magic voluntarily dampened to keep it diluted in the prisoner’s notice, her studies telling her that those of elven disposition are particularly sensitive to the arcane.

The Lord Admiral unfastens the gold buttons of her greatcoat and then shrugs out of it, folding it over the crook of her arm before rolling her shirt-sleeves up to the elbows. The sound of her booted feet, the occasional creak of timber, will no doubt alert the prisoner to her presence before she arrives.

#2 - Do not act aggressive. 

She pauses on the bottom step, noticing the prisoner for the second time that day. It sends an involuntary surge of muddied emotions through her, her hand instinctively moving to her pocket where the weight of her necklace feels heavy. But it wouldn’t do to lose her composure. She gives herself time instead. Time to hang up her greatcoat on a nearby hook, another barrier between them removed. Time to locate a chair, which scrapes on the damp decking as she drags it over, ever mindful of her footing to avoid the shifting puddles of bilgewater. 

The Lord Admiral sits across from her prisoner. Her prisoner, who is watching her closely, ears perked up attentively. Her prisoner, whom not just a minute ago was kicking idly in the dirty water like a bored child and now has the decency to look mildly embarrassed.

First appearances mean everything. This includes attitude as well as dress. She sits at attention, her expression guarded, and allows the elf to take the measure of her. Her prisoner, by contrast, sinks a little in the opposite chair, only as far as the chains will allow. The way a long ear tilts is almost comical. It almost breaks her facade, allows some semblance of humanity to bleed through.

She leans forward in her chair, resting her forearms on her spread thighs. 

#3 - Pay attention.

Use your mind to catalogue everything. Store every bit of information by reading the enemy thoroughly. Absorb everything from subtle movements to quirks, and focus on clear changes in tone to tell the difference between lies and truth.

Jaina exudes an air of utmost control and superiority. And then she speaks, starting simply, “Sea wolf?” She reads the inquisitive look her prisoner gives her. Allows it. “You may speak, you know. It won’t be entirely doom and gloom in here. Only if you cooperate, mind you.”

The elf smiles at that, and the way her eyes seem to brighten in their appraisal shows intelligence and cunning. It sends her skin alight with warmth. _An entirely unwelcome feeling that Jaina wanted to be rid of immediately._

“Doom and gloom? I didn’t know we were in Kul Tiran waters,” the prisoner recites in one’s own good time, managing to make a show of addressing her new surroundings all the while acting as if she owns the place. Funny, really, that she could pull that off when she was the one detained in the brig, chained up to a chair. “Makes sense. My accommodations are rather sparse...maybe a little bit damp.”

Jaina opens her mouth as if to speak. 

The elf continues on smoothly, “I’m not finished. This is the important part. It’s definitely dreary, yes? It wouldn’t hurt to put a few candles down here to burn.” She curls a smile, one that felt far too familiar for their first meeting to allow, “Not that I’m complaining, Admiral, but a little ambient lighting would do you wonders. Shame to keep such a beautiful face in the dark like that.”

“It’s _Lord_ Admiral, thank you,” Jaina retorts in a clipped fashion. 

“Lord Admiral…” her prisoner probes back.

“Proudmoore,” she answers simply, arching a brow. “And you are?”

“A charming mystery, don’t you think?”

Jaina wanted to smack her. _How dare this woman_ , and how could she? To blatantly attempt to turn the tables _and_ flirt with her captor all the while being a hostage under suspicion of _piracy_ and _degrading the dead!!!_ The anchor in her pocket is a testament to that. 

“I know I said that you could talk, but I wasn’t expecting this whole...” Jaina gestures vaguely at the elf. “Whatever this is you’re trying to do. It--”

“Trying to do what?” the prisoner interrupted with a chuckle. “I’m not _trying_ to do anyth-”

“If you interrupt me one more time, I swear down to the depths of the sea,” Jaina answers through grit teeth.

“You _said_ I could speak freely when you-”

“I take it back.”

“I’m just taking my chances and being my--”

“Yourself?” Jaina fumes, leaning back in her chair and lifts her chin in challenge. “Yourself is insufferable.”

“You aren’t the first one to say that,” the prisoner answers with an overly pleased open-mouthed grin, revealing hints of fang. Her blase attitude is ridiculous, unprecedented, and making Jaina rather unprofessionally want to forget the second rule of interrogation!

_Calm down Jaina, breathe. This charade cannot go on. I will not allow this elf to further rankle me._

This is not going to plan.

The Lord Admiral knew that there was something amiss when her sailors pulled their captive up from the sloop, still dripping wet from where they had spotted her swimming, the elf half nude. The elf in question, who is unbothered by the amount of bare skin on display and even now, trying not to shiver below decks, is exuding an air of confidence.

The men - and most of the women - who had pulled their prisoner up and over the bow had done their best to handle her properly, all while averting their eyes as if with not a clue where to put them. Some of them whispered old sea-wives’ tales, asked ‘is that there a mermaid?’, to which her petty officer responded ‘no, you idiot. she’s got no scales’.

A siren, then. The whimsical, but entirely misguided perception of trained officers who have never seen an _elf_ before.

They had blindly busied themselves with securing the captive, with chains, because _you can’t keep a siren in ropes_. It’s the daftest thing she’s heard in all her years, but she didn’t have the heart to go against them. Still, it was mind-boggling to see her crew in such a state. Enchanted. As if this elf had a strange power over them that no one could describe. As if she weren’t just another pirate they’d scooped out of the Great Sea. 

But this is not a typical pirate. Locking eyes with the elf before she was taken to the brig, Jaina had seen a fierce intelligence, something that she could not shake. Their captive had acted in such a way as if the officers taking her below decks were all some sort of grand escort, another piece in some inconceivable puzzle. The Lord Admiral had responded by doubling the watch.

It was time to switch up the gears. 

“Where did you get this necklace?” Jaina asked, lifting the necklace from her pocket and allowing it to dangle from her fingers. The anchor sways on its chain like a pendulum.

The elf’s grey-blue gaze flickered to it briefly before returning to her accusatory ones. She admits only, “I found it.”

“Where did you find it?” Jaina snaps suddenly, the necklace conjuring an uncomfortable maelstrom of emotions. This chain. The very one lost with her father in some watery grave, undiscovered. Until now.

“In the sea.”

“Don’t be smart with me,” the prisoner seems to notice her shift in tone, the sudden severity of the situation. 

“Well, I found these maps…”

“ _Where_.”

“ _I was getting to it!_ ”

There had been something curious about the map-seller, she learns in bits and pieces. An elf in the common quarter of Silvermoon, but one not quite right. His skin had been too pale, carried too blue a tint to it to be of pure elvish blood. Possibly half, but with what? He carried with him books and scrolls, bundled neatly under an arm, selling motley wares from all the world round. 

It had been fascinating, the way the stories he told seemed so impossible and yet real at the same time. The sheer cliffs of Thunderbluff, bridges spanning from rock to rock to provide passage for the tauren who dwell there. The emerald jungles of Un’Goro crater, it’s rivers of fire and wild reptilian creatures tall enough to peer over the very arches of Silvermoon. 

Tales that had captured the elf’s interest immediately. Show now in the tone of excitement, the animated expression used to describe it, that enthusiasm almost contagious. 

Jaina settles into her seat and listens. 

Coin had exchanged hands for the maps, but the compass and exact coordinates had been given for free, no questions asked. 

But the Lord Admiral asks questions, peppers them between the prisoner’s tale of the dive, her own disbelief that anyone could swim that deep without the aid of magic. 

Where are the maps now?

How close is the dive site to the Zandalari border? 

Had the elf come across any ships at sea, no one aboard to tell the tale of how they were lost?

All these little things, and more, she needs the answer to.

This was meant to be a simple service. Dispatch the Proudmoore Flagship unto the Great Sea. Boast their largest frigate to spread fear into sea-vermin from the Broken Isles to the Eastern Kingdoms, one ship to cast a wide net of protection and promise of safety to all the trade merchants utilizing the shipping lanes. The trip to Kalimdor is a harsh enough journey without the added fear of pirates out for blood and plunder.

They had been adrift for days before the prisoner had come along, with nothing but clear skies in every direction. Not a suspect schooner or sailboat in the distance, everyone’s documents in order and properly stamped. Their prisoner has no papers. Only maps. Only stolen Kul Tiran treasure and a queer little compass that doesn’t point north. 

Until the _siren_ had been plucked from the sea, the crew had seen little excitement. Keeping the ship in tip-top shape and its men and women in regulation was their day-to-day, a setback to those chomping at the bit for a more direct opportunity to impress their Lord Admiral. A fact of which she is well aware. For courted from port to port with the promise of action, they had braced themselves down to the very deckswab for overconfident and rum-soaked pirates.

That anticipation had turned to dread when their first brigantine in days became a ghost ship, empty from hull to rudder. The first of many strange sightings that rattled the increasingly superstitious crew. 

And then there was the elf.

Was this an elaborate play, someone would question in low whispers, not wanting to draw attention. “No. Definitely not,” another would say, for the sea wolves were never so sharp, a fact that they could quietly agree upon before getting back to work.

Later, a young Landsman would stress as if in delirium, “But what if it is, and they’re tricking us-!”

His words were promptly cut off by a petty officer’s hand.

“Hush now,” he said warily, loosing his palm from the man’s mouth. “Don’t be feedin’ these sailors more tales. Rumours race like wildfire and they already have enough of all that in their heads.”

The officer slowly released him and they stood there silently, understanding one another. That officer had then found the Lord Admiral, and that was why she was here in part, wasn’t it? To tamp out the suspicions of her crew and set them back on their duties. Something about the sea could cause madness to even the most experienced seafarer, a test they all had to face. 

“How long have you been at sea?” Jaina asks, pulling herself from her own thoughts.

The ears tilt up, and the elf appears to count on the hands tied behind her back before giving up, “A few weeks, maybe?”

“A few weeks? You don’t know how long?” she presses. 

“I was preoccupied. It’s not every day someone gives you treasure maps and a magic compass.”

“A broken compass,” Jaina corrects dryly. It doesn’t even point north.

“A broken compass, perhaps,” the elf answers with a grin. “It still led to treasure, didn’t it?”

“To treasure, or to my father’s grave?” she asks plainly, her eye contact direct.

“Your father’s gra-”

Muffled shouting above deck interrupts them, boots thundering down the steps thereafter and quite nearly missing a step.

“Lord Admiral! Lord Admiral! Lord-” her petty officer is out of breath by the time he reaches the brig, leans against the rail as he all but gasps out. “There’s a Zandalari warship bearing starboard quarter-”

“Lord Admiral!” More footsteps, a boatswain. “We’ve spotted a Darnassian destroyer off the port bow. Awaiting orders.”

“Well, which is it?” Jaina presses her fingers to her temples in vexation.

A throat clears quietly from chains and chair, “Did you say Darnassian?”

Jaina just stares.

* * *

“What the bloody hell is that?” the barrelman grumbles groggily, worry lines forming all around his eyes. Sleep had almost claimed him, a lapse in his watch he couldn’t afford, he thought as he squinted at the peach-coloured sky.

He had to wake up.

He bounces on his heels.

He had to wake up.

_Is that?_

He wonders, peering curiously at something floating, if his vision was failing. It was hazy, like a black dot in the distance, but bobbing...inconspicuous...indistinct...and as his brain catches up with his eyes, it rouses him like the sound of cannonfire. Desperately, he pushes with the heels of his hands to scrumb the remnants of sleep from his eyes.

First protocol of dog watch was that you watched!

The second protocol was to stay- was...was that—

_Oh shit._

Frantically, he scrambles to the front of the crows-nest, folding himself up and throttling precariously over the side. His spidery hands search for the spyglass at his belt, his fingers nervous and clumsy, and when he finally unhooks it, extending it out, he presses it firmly to his eye.

_Fuck._

That is not a black dot. That is a Zandalari fucking warship. This is an entirely different beast. He pivots on his heel, scanning the sea for another one, and. Is that? _He doesn’t know what that is_ , but it's strange purple sails fly at an odd angle and the bloody harpoon sticking out of the front could run their ship through in a shot.

If he wasn’t duty-bound to inform the Lord Admiral, he’d have shat his breeches right now. He still had time. He hadn’t failed her yet. He hadn’t failed his responsibility to his fleet.

“ _AHOY!_ ” he yelled down. “ZANDALARI WARSHIP APPROACHING STARBOARD QUARTER. SOME OTHER PURPLE FUCKERY APPROACHING PORT BOW.”

All sailors and petty officers on the deck came to a sudden halt, pulled taut like an anchor at the end of a chain. The barrelman hollered down again, prompting them all back to action, “IFF!” he warned, “FRIEND OR FOE. PROBABLY FOE. PROCEED WITH CAUTION!” and hopped from the nest to climb down the mast.

On the deck, Lieutenant Fordragon looks through her own spyglass, determined to root out the _purple fucks_. She blinks at the sails in the distance, all but bellowing, “You cretins! That’s a bloody Darnassian destroyer!”

 _What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into_ , she wonders, shouting orders to her fellows. Everyone on board leaps to their stations like clockwork, with the lookout joining them. The Kul Tiran Navy is a perfectly oiled machine, even with a great mob of night elves chasing them through neutral waters. Still, the marines were drilled young to obey and all are on high alert for danger, for this could be a trick of the sea-wolves.

 _Sea-wolves wouldn’t have had the balls to take a Darnassian destroyer_ Pirates. Raiders. Whatever you wanted to name the menace of the waters. Their schemes were intended to muck up the routes and be a bane to merchants. Not to sandwich a Kul Tiran frigate between a great bloody harpoon and half of bastard Zandalar.

“Tides, what is it?” Lord Admiral Proudmoore mutters as she reaches the deck, bracing her hands upon the prow. “Is that-”

“Yes, it fucking is.”

“Well shit.” The Lord Admiral falls silent for a moment, then looks back to her. “Let’s lead them on a merry chase then, shall we?”

The Lieutenant offers a curt nod and bellows out an order to the helmsman. 

Hard south into the mist.

Uncharted waters.

* * *

This mist is a blessing and a curse. It shields them from the pursuing vessels, but makes the journey forward all the more precarious with no clear sight of anything. They have lost one gryphon already, and the others chirp amongst themselves in the stables, disquieted. The Lord Admiral can hear them calling as she returns to her quarters and wonders if the stray will make it back to the frigate safely. 

“So, do you come here often?”

Jaina shuts the door behind her and shrugs out of her greatcoat, rolling her eyes as she lays it over the back of her chair. Moving the prisoner up to her quarters has been her worst decision to-date. While it did alleviate the need to delve into the ship’s belly while they’re being actively pursued, it is, quite simply, tiresome.

At least the elf is properly clothed now, she supposes. Albeit in a linen work shirt and breeches from her smallest petty officer, which the prisoner is still somehow swimming in. She left the chains on, though has given them a little more slack.

“You’re in a mood today,” the current pain in her ass observes with tilt up of the ears. “You snore, you know. Doesn’t seem very restful.”

“I do not.”

“Ha!” The elf is definitely a middle child. “Got you to say something. How was your day, sunshine?”

“Were you cast away from where you once lived, because I feel like that was the case,” Jaina replies drily, thumbing through a stack of reports and feeling a powerful headache coming on. “Were you not given enough attention as a child?”

“I don’t know, did your bloodline even exist when I was a child?” The prisoner answers with a sniff. “I was the apple of my mother’s eye, thank you. And I still am.”

She reaches over without looking, flicking the elf on the tip of the ear and hearing a satisfying yelp. Scanning over her report again, she asks, “Do you ever stop talking?”

Chains clink as the prisoner touches the end of her pointed ear, which - to be fair - does look a little red. 

“Sensitive baby,” Jaina mocks lightly, ignoring the resultant glower.

“You’re a baby.”

“Can you not for one second,” she takes hold of the other ear, pulls the elf closer to the table to look at her for the first time. “Be what elves are supposed to be.”

“What is an elf supposed to be, pray tell?” Blue-grey eyes are offset by a scowl.

“I don’t know.” She shrugs, but doesn’t let go or look away. Pointedly, she explains, “Elegant, attractive, regal? Quiet, literally ever?”

“You know so many adjectives for a sailor, it’s really quite refreshing,” the prisoner responds in a bored tone.

“You’re infuriating.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” 

_They’re about to fall out._

Jaina opens her mouth to make a biting remark, but is interrupted by the sudden shouting that erupts on the deck outside. She closes her eyes and leans back in her chair, allowing the ear to fall from her grasp with a deep sigh. Any minute now.

A polite, perfunctory knock.

There it is.

“Would you like to come in?” Jaina calls, cracking an eye open.

It creaks open just a bit, the distinct head of Lieutenant Fordragon peering around the corner, “Alright there, Admiral?”

“Not really,” she answers. “Please, Taelia. Just tell me what’s going on outside already.”

“Well. Do you want the good news or the bad news?” the Lieutenant asks.

“Taelia…”

“Well, the good news is - nobodies dead. The bad news, the sailors are shitting bricks because a giant owl - you know like the Drustvar - a druid, right?”

“Taelia.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Back on topic. So the giant owl dropped an angry kaldorei - I think they’re both kaldorei - captain on deck and she’s demanding to see the prisoner,” Taelia explains, gesturing about a foot over her head as if well impressed.

“How does she know we have a prisoner?” Jaina inquires tiredly, rubbing at her temples.

“Might have something to do with the fuck-off shoal of orcas around the boat, I’m guessing,” comes the answer she did not want. 

It has not escaped her notice that the prisoner has fallen utterly and delightfully silent.  
She wishes she could appreciate it without finding it suspicious.

Heaving a sigh, the Lord Admiral levers up from her chair and moves to take her coat. Buttoning it up for what seems the thousandth time in a few days, she glances to Taelia and says, “Let’s get this over then, shall we?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sparing a glance over her shoulder, Jaina informs the prisoner, “Don’t touch anything,” and then steps out onto the deck.

It isn’t hard to find the kaldorei, they stand out like a sore thumb even without the ring of bewildered sailors around them.

 _Tides_ , she thinks as she steps over toward them, getting a true measure of their visitors for the first time. Taelia gestures above her head again, mouths something. Her Lieutenant isn’t wrong, she muses as her blue eyes linger upon their guest. That woman is _tall_. She’s going to get a crick in her neck if this conversation lasts as long as she thinks it might.

Better start off on the right foot.

“You know that boarding an allied vessel uninvited is an act of hostility,” Jaina greets succinctly, right out the gate. Best to keep them off-guard until she knows what they’re on about.

“True, but it is hard to see the proper flags in all this mist, isn’t it? Or was that the idea, Lord Admiral?” The kaldorei’s voice is as smooth and cultured as she imagined one might be. Nothing at all like the annoying little pirate nestled up in her cabin.

She can hear the clicks and splashes of the whales around the ship, a proper show of dominance if it’s anything, and one she won’t cower to.

“I’m flattered, did you really need all this to get my attention?” Jaina asks with an arched brow, never breaking eye contact.

“It wasn’t yours I was after,” the other woman responds, taking two entirely too swift steps forward to loom over her like a nightsaber stalking its prey. Well-muscled and tall - at least seven feet by her estimate - their visitor looks like something of an old Darnassian story told to enthrall children. Warrior first, captain second if the armour is any indication.

Those star-white eyes bore into her.

She doesn’t like that.

“Why don’t we get the pleasantries out of the way?” the stranger observes, an ear flicking toward the nearby sailors. 

“Very well.” Jaina doesn’t like anything about _that_ either. This woman has her at a disadvantage. “Lord Admiral Jaina Proudmoore of the Kul Tiran fleet.”

She doesn’t shake the strong hand held out to her, but looks at it, once, dismissively. It falls back to the other’s side as a kelp-coloured brow rises.

“Tyrande Whisperwind.” The name is invoked like some sort of threat and with a flash of white incisors. “Chosen High Priestess of the Goddess Elune, Current Head of the Sisterhood of Elune, Former General of the Night Elf Sentinels, and Queen of the Darnassian Empire. You have something that belongs to me. I expect it returned.”

_Oh._

Well, that’s some right gull shit to step in.

“I highly doubt it,” Jaina answers back plainly, fighting the urge to take a half-step back. “Our frigate is on a routine mission. We have all appropriate authorization from the Alliance to deter any piracy in the waters between Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.”

_What is the Darnassian Queen doing this far from Teldrassil?_

Superiority bleeds from that tall frame as Tyrande states succinctly, “You’re being obtuse. The elf - where is she?”

Drily, the Lord Admiral replies, “We don’t have any Darnassians aboard our vessel - or didn’t. Until just now.”

“This is mint.” She can hear Taelia’s voice quietly from somewhere behind her as the giant _bloody_ owl turns into an equally tall kaldorei man with ivy tangled into his beard. 

The Darnassian Queen’s ear shifts back toward him as he approaches her, “Malfurion?”

“My Queen.” He acknowledges her with a bow, then nods toward the captain’s quarters. “She’s in there. Like salt and the Sunwell.”

Those moon-white eyes tighten perceptibly around the corners, Tyrande’s voicing tersely, “Could you not? Your petulance is showing.”

He looks like a whipped dog. 

Owl. 

Man. 

Orca?

She steels her expression carefully as the Queen rounds on her again, revealing nothing.

“You have my betrothed in your custody, and I want her back,” Tyrande rolls her shoulders with the grace of a great cat, then looks down on her. “This new alliance between our peoples is fragile. I think we can agree that it would best if this news does not reach your King Wrynn. Don’t you think, Admiral?”

“ _Lord_ Admiral. And King Wrynn has no authority over Kul Tiran affairs where they pertain to piracy,” Jaina bites back, unwavering. She imagines this is what it might feel like to have a live thresher shark dropped into one’s bath-tub. Lightly, she counters, “Feel free to direct your queries to Lady Katherine Proudmoore. Enjoy the trip. Kul Tiras is lovely this time of year, I hope your hull has been reinforced for ice-breaking.”

“I’m trying to help you,” a lip curls back to reveal teeth. “Unless you would care to risk hostilities with both Darnassus and Silvermoon.”

“So - all of a sudden, you decided to jump out of the comfort of your beloved trees to what? Help the poor, misguided humans out by stealing their hostage?” Jaina presses back, ignoring the teeth and the warning alike.

“Yes.” Tyrande’s smooth voice goes as flat as a blade. “Exactly that.”

“I smell fish shit, _Queen Whisperwind_ , and you know exactly what I mean.” Jaina’s eyes flash with intensity. “I do hope I’ve chosen the correct title. Wouldn’t want you to believe our entire race is nothing but a bunch of ignorants.”

“Now why would I think that, Lord Admiral?” Tyrande’s ears shift up and that well-muscled frame leans forward, all posturing now. A sabercat grin, all teeth and little humor, curls over those stony features as the night elf continues, “My, you have quite the temper, don’t you? Is it true that your people tend to burn out prematurely from their fervoured behavior? I’m not entirely sure, if I’m being honest. It seems like just yesterday you were playing about in your little mud huts…”

 _Don’t you still frolic in mud huts?_ She wanted to say. _Didn’t her kind live at ‘one with nature?’_ She wanted to say as well. The sheer fucking audacity.

And _instead_ , fuming, struggling visibly to rein in her discontent. Promising herself that this kaldorei woman - queen or not - wouldn’t win...because she was _Jaina Proudmoore, and her line was predetermined with a bull-headed stubbornness that never died out._

She doesn’t take the bait, not entirely. She more so nibbles at it, “Don’t you live in a tree?”

Tyrande laughs aloud at that, which is somehow more terrifying than her smile. Not a few sailors jump closer to the ship’s rail.

“We can go to her if you want,” Jaina alters the course of their conversation with reluctance. “Leave your men on the deck and call off your…” She waves toward the surrounding seas. “Mess of whales.”

“Splendid,” Tyrande sounds more delighted than miffed, though whether at getting her way or having reeled her fish-hook in empty is anyone’s case. 

“My Queen.” And there’s _Malfurion_. “You shouldn’t go on your own-”

“Silence,” Tyrande’s response cracks through the air like mast breaking. “If you think I couldn’t deal with a handful of brine-soaked children…”

He falls silent. Even the ivy in his beard seems to wilt.

Having the Darnassian Queen walk behind her into her quarters is entirely uncomfortable. She can’t even hear the footsteps. But as she pulls open the door to her lodgings, stepping in without holding it for the kaldorei, Jaina is fascinated by the way her prisoner’s ears perk up attentively and then - at a soft utterance in an unfamiliar tongue behind her - snap back against her head. 

Tyrande’s hard edges seem to melt away, if only a little.

_That was a strange thread to unravel...who is this elf? What is she to Silvermoon?_

_Perhaps she should ask. No, she definitely should ask._

“Who is this?” Jaina implores rather quietly, nodding toward the prisoner as if hesitant to break the sudden shift. But this prisoner...she was curious, a puzzle that just needs its final piece.

Not that either of them are giving her any answers. They appear to be communicating via a thought-provoking exchange of silent dialogue, using only their tall and animated ears as an alphabet.

 _Much like the sign language some Kul Tiran’s used_ , Jaina pondered, and after a while beginning to feel quite ignored. And it won’t do to let them carry on their covert conspiring in play sight. She interrupts them with a loud clearing of her throat.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Jaina points out drily.

Almost as if to spite her for her interruption, Tyrande switches back to common to murmur to the other elf, “Being tied up looks good on you.”

“I thought so too,” the prisoner answers glibly.

Jaina’s face heats at hearing that, but she presses regardless, “Kindly cease.”

A few seconds pass in quiet, the only sound is the sea lapping at the ship, a sailors lull. The orcas must have gone. And then movement, Whisperwind striding behind the prisoner, the way she moves bringing with it images of a graceful nightsaber claiming its prey, and the outward expression _‘she’s mine’_.

Tyrande puts both of her hands on the back of the prisoner’s chair and leans forward, wondering aloud and a little mockingly, “You don’t even know who you have?”

Jaina’s stormy eyes fall half-lid, squinting in thought as she recalls the elf’s annoyance at their previous bickering and decides to play, if only for a little while longer as she moves her gaze back to _her_ prisoner, “I wanted her to have some entertainment. Because I don’t know...It looks like the only company she’s been keeping is great sea rays and jellyfish, and anyway, isn’t this the best way to get to know one another? Under threat of international hostilities?”

The captive addresses her with a lopsided smirk, a mystery finally undone, “Sylvanas Windrunner, someone of little importance-”

“Of little importance?” Tyrande scoffs, moving her hand to Sylvanas’s shoulder and squeezing firmly. “You are the Prince of Silvermoon, beloved daughter of Queen Lireesa. Who sent me to fetch you, incidentally.”

“She likes titles, doesn’t she?” Jaina directs that at the present Windrunner instead.

Sylvanas...and it will take effort to think of her as that, seems to be trying not to look infinitely amused. An ear perks toward Tyrande as the quel’dorei groans, “Little Moon again?”

“Indeed. You never seem to learn, do you?” Tyrande smiles, and that damned smile is so full of...something. 

Something quickly masked as it’s Sylvanas’s turn to tease, “You have an entire kingdom that worships you, Lady Whisperwind. And yet here you are, chasing after the wayward daughter of Silvermoon because my _mother told you to_.” 

“It isn’t like that--”

“Isn’t it?” Sylvanas rolls her shoulders idly as if to remove the hands that have settled upon them. It makes the chains clink together, and the atmosphere shifts. Tyrande’s moon-white eyes narrow, whether at the manacles or at the action itself, she isn’t sure. 

“Sylvanas…” Tyrande growls softly, circling around the chair to stand in front of her. It seems the latter. It seems like a millennia old argument, honestly. A lover’s feud? “Why can’t you just accept your station. Why can’t you… Why can’t you come home with me like you promised all those years ago?”

_Well. This is awkward._

It feels like the ship’s spotlight has turned onto these two alone. Jaina in the dark as the main heroines continue their story. Sylvanas looks hurt at that. As if she were trying to desperately convey why. Like she has had this conversation with Tyrande too many times for her why’s to even matter.

_Just what were they to each other?_

Sylvanas licks her lips slowly and then looks to Jaina, “Are you really going to let another captain interrogate your prisoner?”

She blinks.

Tyrande’s ears shift back amidst kelp-green hair and her lip curls dangerously.

“Well…” Jaina intercedes lightly, slipping back into Lord Admiral. Her blue eyes settle on her prisoner - Sylvanas, she corrects herself - as she remarks, “She’s getting more information out of you than I was. Maybe if you were a little more candid, I’d be inclined to keep you.”

It seems Tyrande’s ears pin back even further, and she could swear she hears the hint of a growl, low in the chest before the kaldorei voices warningly, “Your mother is-”

“Don’t you dare bring my mother into this,” Sylvanas retorts with surprising animosity. They remind her of two dock cats squabbling over a fish. She has to give the elf credit, she damns herself assertively, “I’ve engaged in an act of piracy. I was found in possession of Kul Tiran valuables and without any of the proper sailing permits or identifications.” 

“You haven’t stolen anything a day in your life,” Tyrande bites back.

Sylvanas slaps her manacled hands onto the nearby table with authority, scooping up a fistful of papers and stuffing them in her shirt. Directly to Jaina, the elf announces, “I’ve stolen your property, Lord Admiral. Put me under arrest.”

“You’re already under arrest,” Jaina points out helpfully, having wandered to her desk to pour herself a stiff drink. Maybe two, if this is going to continue.

“You can’t be serious,” Tyrande snaps flatly, staring the other elf dead in the eye.

“I am deathly serious,” her captive announces boldly in return. “Piracy is a serious crime - ask the Lord Admiral. She’ll throw you straight in the stocks with almost no real evidence of foul play.”

“Excuse me?” the Lord Admiral looks over the rim of her glass before tipping it back in one go.

“This is the most transparent excuse to-” the Darnassian Queen is furious.

Neither of them expect the sudden shift in gear, the speed with which Sylvanas throws everything at the wall to see what will stick, “I found Kul Tiran wreckage and dove up valuables. The very least I could do is stay onboard and make amends to the Lord Admiral. It’s a matter of personal honor.”

Everything about Tyrande’s expression right now says _oh for fuck’s sake._

“You know how my mother feels about honor, Tyrande,” Sylvanas presses, successfully wrapping the narrative around her little finger. 

“Fine.” Tyrande’s answer is curt, carries a decided finality. “I’ll tell your mother to expect you in-” 

“Oh, I expect it’ll be at least a few months time,” Jaina supplies helpfully. Sarcastically. Most definitely sarcastically, as she stoppers her bottle of whiskey. “That’s nothing to you elf-types is it?”

Tyrande bristles visibly at that, but stalks toward the door as if with singular purpose. Almost in afterthought, an ear tilting to the side, the kaldorei pauses there to look back at them and instructs succinctly, “You had best look after her. That means proper clothes. Lose the chains, else I take it personally, Lord Admiral.”

Moon-white eyes narrow subtly once more, shift to Sylvanas and then back to her before the kaldorei snaps softly, “And mind yourself with this one. She’s a heart-breaker.”

Maybe putting the stopper back in the whiskey was pre-emptive.

They both jump when the door slams shut with a bit too much force, and she can hear the Darnassian shouting orders to her own people.

Coming up behind the chair, Jaina leans her arm on the back of it and flicks the elf in the ear again before stating, “So. You owe me. Twice now, even.”

Sylvanas, who has been watching the door with an almost sullen look for several seconds, seems to perk up at that, though the offended ear swivels away from her. Curiously, the elf asks, “Twice, is it?”

The Lord Admiral nods slowly, eyeing her papers stuffed down the front of the other’s shirt with a certain vexation, “Thrice. Once for the necklace. Once for my paperwork. And once for…” She gestures toward the door, “Whatever the fuck that was.”

With a little nod, the elf sinks into the chair with an almost-contented sigh, “You better give me some duties, then. I’m quite a good shot. And a great swimmer.” The corner of Sylvanas’s mouth curls up in a smirk, “I can keep a bed pretty warm, too.” 

She shoves the elf’s face away from her, not far given that she’s still manacled to a chair, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.

“We have fraternization rules in the Kul Tiran Navy,” Jaina informs her plainly, reaching into her pocket for the key and dropping it into the captive’s lap. Moving toward her dresser, she rifles through it for something that would better fit the elf and comes up with...nothing, really. A few shirts that might double as tunics, which she throws at Sylvanas next.

Having risen out of the chair for the first time - and Tides, she didn’t realize that the elf was that short, having never really taken stock of her out of it - Sylvanas is stretching languidly, and seems to pay little mind to her presence before peeling off the petty officer’s shirt.

Gaze fixed on the wall, Jaina jerks a thumb in the vague direction of the dresser and instructs, “Anything you can find - but something that fits, preferably.”

“Alright, alright…”

“Alright _what_ ,” she prompts.

“Alright, Lord Admiral.”

* * *

Settled behind her desk upon the destroyer, Tyrande Whisperwind works by candlelight well into the night, needing far less sleep than any human sailor could subsist on. The scrolls are perfectly scripted, stamped with the royal seal, and set in their cases well before she summons Malfurion to her quarters. 

He looks hopeful. 

She quashes it immediately, “Send your swiftest druid to Silvermoon harbour, Queen Lireesa must know that her daughter’s return will be...delayed.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

“And, Malfurion?” Her ear shifts back a scarce measure, eyes bright as she sets the smart series of trade agreements upon the desk. “You will deliver these to Katherine Proudmoore and Anduin Wrynn immediately. No stops. No delays.”

“Yes, my Queen.” 

That one sounds a bit strained.

No matter.

She hears Kul Tiras is lovely this time of year.


	2. New People, Old Empires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNING*
> 
> Lots of swearing!

**These are the words King Rastakhan has forgotten.**

_#1 - Zandalar forever. De Zandalari built an empire dat would endure for over ten-thousand years...while their barbaric ancestors scuffled in de dirt._

The traveller is sickly for an elf, his lanky frame bent in at an angle, an unnatural height masked beneath the folds of a faded brown cloak. His pallor is almost corpse-like, an unhealthy tinge of blue like something left to rot beneath the waves, and from beneath his hood, his ears are too large and expressive for one of a pure quel’dorei line, his hands too rough and worn from days of work. Thin as a knife-blade, he slips down the steps of the stone ziggurat and into the darkness below.

His body bends and snaps as the magic dispels, bones popping back into place with a visceral sound. Vertebrae jut from beneath the skin. The traveller breathes easier with his ribs back in place, stands two heads taller. His shadow casts tusks upon the stone-worked wall. Three fingers with dirty, broken nails come to rest upon the carved motifs there, drag over images of the old, flourishing Empire. Throngs of captives in the plaza atop this very ziggurat, waiting for their blood to spill down the stone steps in offering.

_#2 - We civilized dis world. We conquered it. And once again, these savages seek to undermine our greatness._

A figure meets him in the flickering torchlight, and his head bows in deference. Their shadow looms over his own, the feathers of their ornate headdress a symbol of unquestioned authority.

“Ma’da, we failed to capture de reckless one,” the traveller apologises, sinking back a step and making himself appear small. “She is in de Proudmoore’s clutches now. It’s not long before she finds out about de wreckage.”

“Is dere any more to your failings?” the shadow’s voice is scathing, cuts itself on long tusks.

“Yes, ma’da...I’m sorry,” he flinches at a look. “De Queen of Darnassus is with dem.”

“De Queen of Darnassus? So dat means de rumours be true.” The shadow pauses, as if pondering that fact and how it may be exploited.

The traveler keeps his gaze on the floor, does not dare look up.

A hand seizes his jaw and lifts it, forces his attention back as the shadow speaks, “No matter. We can use dis to our advantage, and you may remain our pawn.” It pats his cheek upon release. “Little Amani.”

“Ma’da?” he asks in a tremulous voice.

_#3 - No, I will not surrender. Because no matter what happens here today...Zandalar will stand long after Silvermoon has crumbled to dust._

“Your people have dere role to fill.” The shadow smiles, but it is not comforting. “Dat bitch Lireesa has moulded dem into submission like a tamed beast, but blood spilled will make dem forget. Make dem remember who dey are.”

The shadow is right. That tiny snow-tipped elf will be their ruination. Lireesa had not needed to fight a war to control them. She was too strong-willed and clever, too motivated by a standing peace. Her rangers had quashed the insurgents that arose in Zul’Aman, and what was worse, her generosity had made slaves of its people.They are forgetting how to be trolls, languishing fat and easy in the jungle.

It is a crime that must be punished.

And how to do that? Her eldest daughter is untouchable, the Ranger-General at the head of all of Silvermoon’s army. The little one never leaves the walls. Her middle daughter, though, is a different story. Always rebelling, he has come to learn. Always chasing after the next adventure, no matter how ill-advised and with little thought to the consequences.

Easy pickings, or so he thought until the Proudmoore flagship had pulled her out of the ocean.

Still, it is a small defeat. He will not settle for the Windrunner lineage to continue. It needs to be eradicated, and what better way than to tear her limb from limb, starting with her middle daughter.

He closes his hand into a fist, rests it over his heart, “What do you need me to do?”

* * *

The queer bone dice clatter as they bounce across the floor, rolling and rolicking on the uneven decking as another wave tilts the ship precariously to the side. It’s been ill weather the past few days, but it makes their little games all the more interesting. Where will the die land? If they’re cocked, will the next rush of waves be enough to tip them to a more favourable number, and allow her to steal the hand? It gives her a bit of a rush. Nevermind that she has to duck beneath the swinging hammocks here and there to avoid getting clocked in the ears.

Circled by a merry bunch of sailors, with the shirtless Hodge and Podge to either side of her looking sullen, Sylvanas is a quick study. She’s picked up their game of dice in a bit under a day, and is currently working her way up the ladder of petty crewmen, amassing a proverbial wealth of winnings. They bet with the only currency available to them - trade for ship’s duties, and clothes.

Flipping open the pocket watch she won from Podge to check the time, Sylvanas awaits her next opponent lowering himself to the deck. It takes him a while, given the peg leg, but he manages nonetheless. And thus begins the great battle of wills.

Surrounded by her new comrades - and a few seadogs hoping to win back their losses, Sylvanas and her opponent sit beneath the netted bedding on mid-deck, their duly appointed battlefield for the afternoon, with crewmen hooting and hollering as they place hasty wages all around them. Cross-legged, each with one hand on a knee and the other braced to the timber to accommodate the swaying frigate beneath them, they are a perfect mirror of one another, down to the intense gleam of determination in their eyes - except for, well...you know. The obvious.

That being that Griff is absolutely the oldest and most cantankerous human - Lord Admiral excepting on the second bit - human that she has ever seen. So positively ancient that when he smiles, it crinkles the whole of his face like a bit of parchment and all but obliterates his eyes from view. His salt-and-pepper beard is wildly tangled, heavily stained from whatever mystery substance he’s loudly chewing as if to throw her off her game.

So are his teeth when he smiles at her. What of them are left.

Her ear twitches.

She watches every hand with a hawk-like attention to detail, forfeiting in rapid succession two sets of oiled leather boots, and Hodge’s belt, her first major string of losses. Leaning her chin heavily into her hand, her ears tilting back a measure in thought, Sylvanas simply watches for the next three tosses to correct her suspicions before her hand darts out to catch up a die.

She rolls it once. _Six._ Twice. _Six._ Three more times in rapid succession. _Six. Six. Six._ And then merely stares at him with a cocked brow, holding up the die between her fingertips in quiet accusation.

His face crinkles in delight, “Y’caught me red-handed.”

It doesn’t help that the hand he’s holding up is a hook.

Sylvanas tucks the loaded die into her breast pocket and then reaches out, sliding her recent losses back over into the pile before wagging her finger at him scoldingly.

Whispers of _sea witch_ and _siren_ pick up amongst the crew, a murmured hush.

Griff just grins from ear to ear with tea-coloured teeth, his beard a mess, “Ignore ‘em scallywags. They wouldn’t know a proper siren if one bit ‘em on the ass.”

“You saying I’m not mythical, Griff?” Sylvanas replies in mock horror.

“Y’know what I mean. Might have great ears like a ship’s mast, doesn’t make ya a Darnassian Queen neither. Respect it though,” Griff jabs back with a crooked smile.

She loves Griff. Griff is like the irreverent pirate father she never had. A man for the ages. He even cheats at dice. Another clear attempt at distraction, because she catches him by one tattooed wrist as he tries to flip one of the die where it lands.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Sylvanas clicks her tongue, accusing again, “You could cheat all day and still lose, you old git.”

“No, I ain’t losin’,” he wheezes out raspily, appearing some delighted to be bested at his own game. “I just ain’t winnin’. Ya learn that from Fordragon by chance? Never heard a-elf say git a’fore.”

“You never saw an elf until last week,” Sylvanas answers with a squint at the dice. A long ear listing to the side in thought, she asserts, “Maybe though. She said you were a...what was it again. A right ba...stard?” Her ears perk up at attention as she looks to him as if for validation.

Griff, to his credit, looks for all the world like a proud grandfather watching his grandchild take their first steps. Or perhaps - in his case - its first stiff drink. He takes a deep pull from a silver flask and then offers it to her, erupting into full belly laughter as he barks out, “I know who m’father is - Tides bless his soul lost at sea - but yes. That’s how ya say it little ‘un.”

“I’m not that little,” Sylvanas sniffs, taking the flask and peering dubiously at its contents. She takes a tentative whiff, and immediately loses all ability to smell anything further. Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, she’s not certain. Still, against her better judgment she takes the world’s tiniest sip of mystery beverage and feels all of her taste buds evaporate, pulling an expressive face before handing it back. “Bloody arsehole.”

“Blimey, y’blooming bugger,” Griff recites as if in instruction, clearly for her benefit.

She looks at him with a sort of wide-eyed fascination, as if trying to decipher the exact order of words that just came out of his mouth. Mouthing them beneath her breath so as not to forget them, she snatches up a nub of chalk they’ve been using to tally bets and sketches the words out on the deck as if it were just such a lesson, and she at the Academy in Silvermoon.

Her ear swivels sharply at the sound of bone on wood, a hushed whisper of the crewman that makes her blue-grey eyes dart back up, and Sylvanas reprimands mid-toss, “If you move that die, I swear down to the depths of the sea…”

“That there,” Griff punctuates the words with a finger, “Is the Lord Admiral’s saying.” He scowls down at the dice soon enough, the wrinkles inexplicably deepening in his brow. “Ah shit fuck, fuckin’ shit damn fuck. I lost?” He rubs his beard as he looks back up. “Y’sure you ain’t some ‘orrible sea witch here to steal all my worldly possessions?”

“It’s a sock, Griff. You’ll get over it,” Sylvanas answers back.

“It’s m’favorite sock though,” Griff answers with a grumble. “It’s m’peg sock. What if I slip n’ fall?”

Sylvanas opens her mouth as if to respond, but isn’t afforded the chance as everyone quite suddenly erupts into motion, hurrying to look as if they are doing anything else but betting on an unsanctioned dice game when they should be to work. Griff, to his credit, slowly totters to his feet and calls out after the fleeing crew, “Lieutenant on deck!”

Too little, too late.

Taelia pushes through the mess of sailors with a bewildered expression, quickly reading the situation from the amount of her crew in various states of undress, and perhaps by the veritable hoard of winnings heaped beside their resident elf. 

Sparing a pointed look at Hodge and Podge, both of whom are red from the navel to the ears, for being out of their regulation uniforms, she clears her throat slowly and announces, “Never seen sorrier sods in all my life. Depressing, really.”

They glance at each other.

Hodge pipes up first, “Aw, it’s just a bit of fun, Lieutenant…”

Podge adds immediately, “You remember fun, Lieutenant? Used to be a real good laugh before you got promoted didn’t y-”

“Fuck off, Podge,” Taelia answers with a roll of her eyes, then looks at Sylvanas. “You going to give him back his shit before the Lord Admiral takes it out of his hide, or let the poor man suffer?”

“I’m keeping the watch.” Sylvanas flips the brass pocket watch open, then closed again pointedly. “Rest is all yours, boys.”

“Right. Hodge, get your damn clothes already!” Taelia barks, kicking the heap of clothes in his direction. “You can both fuck off right now, or I’ll have to report this. And you know I hate reports. Stodgy work.”

Sylvanas smirks.

“You done fleecing my crew, Windrunner?” Taelia asks then, peering down at the quel’dorei.

“Not like I wasn’t giving it back anyway,” Sylvanas shrugs and offers her cheekiest smile, taking Taelia’s hand as the other woman pulls her up from the floor. Lacing her arm through Taelia’s, she inquires, “So to the Lord Admiral then?”

“How’d you know it was the Lord Admiral?”

“She can’t resist me.”

With another roll of her eyes, Taelia leads on toward the stairs and the deck above.

“You know,” the Lieutenant observes conversationally. “The Lord Admiral doesn’t allow gambling on her ships after the Derek incident.”

Her ears perk up a bit at that, Sylvanas looking curiously over, “Oh, that sounds promising. Why don’t you tell me all about it?”

“Tell you all about it if you give me that pocket watch,” Taelia counters. “Cheeky little buggers nicked it off me in a completely above board and sanctioned game a few weeks back.”

“Uh huh,” Sylvanas replies, but holds the watch out on its chain. She pulls it back when Taelia reaches for it. “Story first, shiny objects later.”

“Imagine. Katherine Proudmoore, great bloody matriarch of all Kul Tiras,” Taelia certainly does have a flair for the dramatic, makes a sweeping gesture toward the stairs. “Standing on the docks waiting for her son to return home from sea-battle with the Ashvanes up north. Here he comes, the pride of the whole Proudmoore fleet, coasting right into the harbor victorious.”

“And?” Sylvanas hedges curiously.

“Standing completely starkers naked in nothing but his captain’s hat, with his tiny little cock just a-flapping in the wind,” Taelia wiggles a finger-tip as if to provide an example. “Mint innit?”

“You _have_ to introduce me.”

“That’ll be hard, what with the Lord Admiral knocking him down three ranks. Her own brother, and had to get his own ship after. Pretty spot on,” Taelia remarks incorrigibly, holding her fingertips about an inch apart. “Just a little schooner.”

She threads her arm out of Taelia’s and all but bolts the last few steps to the captain’s quarters, swinging the door open to ask with her most mischievous grin, “So tell me about your brother and his little schooner.”

Pacing back and forth in her chambers with the compass in her hands, the illustrious Lord Admiral comes to a sudden halt at that, blue eyes narrowing as she barks out simply, “Taelia!?” And then, with a sigh of longsuffering at their antics, “Could we not discuss my family’s sordid past with the _bloody prisoner_ , please? Thank you.”

“Aw, c’mon, she’s not a prisoner anymore,” Fordragon counters as she comes up to the door. “Just a cheeky little parsnip. No harm done.”

Sylvanas pads across the chamber, rising on her tip-toes to rest her chin on the Lord Admiral’s shoulder, and teases, “Just a little schooner and you’ve got a whole frigate. Compensating for something, Lord Admiral?”

Jaina looks down at the elf with exasperation, then toward Taelia as if the other were at risk for a court-martial. “Lieutenant Fordragon,” she says slowly. “Could you leave us for a moment?”

“Aww,” Sylvanas is nothing if not delighted by this turn of events, perhaps even for the fact that the Lord Admiral hasn’t yet removed her from her person. “Need some alone time with little old me? I was just missing our chats. You still have the manacles?”

Jaina lifts one gloved hand slowly, and quite simply shoves the elf’s face away from her, ignoring the quiet laughter behind her as she moves to set the compass down on the desk with a _click_.

“Don’t be cross,” Sylvanas pipes up. “If it makes you feel any better, I could tell you about the time Alleria learned not to fool around with other rangers on patrol. Ended up bolting after a whole Amani warband in nothing but her trousers. Very fetching. Thought Commander Tits-Out was really going to stick until she got Ranger-General.”

“Who’s Alleria?” Taelia asks, suddenly intrigued.

“An Alleria,” Sylvanas begins to recite as if from an old tome, circling around the desk to sit in the Admiral’s chair. Folding her arms behind her head, she props her boots up on the edge. “Is a mythical and stuck-up creature, native to the highest parts of Silvermoon. It’s the only way she can properly look down her nose at everyone.”

“She sounds-” Taelia begins.

“No.” Jaina cuts them both off, pointing first at Sylvanas. “No.” And then at Taelia. “No.” And then shoving the boots off the corner of her desk, “No.” Then, grabbing the elf by the collar of her shirt, “Now get out of my chair!”

With a waggle of her brows and a pointed look down at her lap, Sylvanas counters, “Plenty of room, you could still sit here. Or is this not working for you?”

Circling around the chair with purpose, the Lord Admiral grasps the elf by both ears simultaneously, all but puppeteering her out of the chair one step at a time so as to avoid having them pulled off completely.

“ _Owww_ ,” Sylvanas’s hands come to either side of her head upon being released, and she massages the offended ears gently, hissing occasionally as if they still stung. With a sniff, she perches on the corner of the desk, though looks warily at the Lord Admiral even at that.

“Looks kinky,” Taelia observes, though her mouth snaps shut immediately after and she, too, warily eyes the Lord Admiral.

“Some people are into it,” Sylvanas muses with another soft wince. “This one time, I was in Fairhaven and this innkeeper’s daughter-”

“Absolutely not,” Jaina bites out, jerking a gesture toward the compass. “Compass. Map. Now.”

“You didn’t figure it out?” Sylvanas asks slyly, wounded ears and pride forgotten.

“It’s in _fucking_ Thalassian.”

“Poor Lord Admiral doesn’t know _Thalassian_ ,” Sylvanas hops from the edge of the desk preemptively as if to avoid retaliation. “Funny how I know common. And here you assured Tyrande that your people weren’t ignorants.”

Jaina pinches the bridge of her nose, exhaling in a strained sigh. Through grit teeth, she answers, “We haven’t _needed_ to learn Thalassian and our alliance is _very new_.”

“But here I am,” Sylvanas asserts with a grand gesture. “Learning all of yours.”

 _No_ , Taelia mouths with a growing horror, shooting a warning look at her for that.

“What do you think about the word _cunt_ ,” the elf continues on, hands settling on her hips as she looks pointedly at Jaina. Blue-grey eyes roving over the Lord Admiral and a suggestive smile curling her lips, she drawls out, “Nice strong human word, that. The sort you could really get behind.”

 _Oh Tides_. Taelia is covering her face with both hands now as if that will remove all the damning implications, finally voicing, “She doesn’t know what she’s...I’m just going to- Just gonna let myself-”

The door shuts behind Lieutenant Fordragon on the way out.

Jaina bridges her fingers together atop her desk, looking over them to state curtly, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

“I didn’t mean to-” Those long ears droop. The look leveled at her tells her enough. Somewhat deflated and properly chastised, Sylvanas slings herself into the chair opposite the Lord Admiral’s and folds her arms atop the desk, resting her chin atop them. Idly tracing a scratch in the wood, she looks up after a few minutes to ask, “It was really that bad?”

“Oi!” The door opens again, Taelia poking her head in to say, “You promised me that bloody watch-”

The Lord Admiral’s eyes meet hers from above laced fingers, prompting a sudden halt, a hasty retreat, and the door clicks shut once more.

More silence. It’s almost unbearable. She feels like she’s sitting in Silvermoon’s court waiting for her mother to pass judgment.

Pushing herself up from her chair all of a sudden, Sylvanas moves around to open a drawer, pulling the dusty bottle from therein and setting a glass next to Jaina’s elbow. She pours a scarce measure of amber whiskey into the glass, slides it just a little nearer the Lord Admiral as if in offering, and leans back against the edge of the desk.

“Can we start again?” she asks quietly, seemingly in earnest. Fingertips reaching out, she pushes the glass a little nearer even still, all but touching the other’s shirt-sleeve now. “I’ll help you with the compass?”

“Are you bribing me with my own whiskey?” Jaina inquires back, a brow arched. She nonetheless takes the glass between her fingertips and tilts it back in one go, setting it back on the desk to state, “It’ll take more than one glass.”

Sylvanas answers smoothly, topping it off again, “Well, we’ve got all night.”

* * *

Jaina levels a steady look at her over the second glass of whiskey before tipping it back. It helps. Somewhat. Not quite enough. She’s tempted to charge Taelia with mutiny just for bringing _her_ in here. Doesn’t even matter that she summoned her, even. It’s only been a fortnight, and Windrunner has the whole of the bloody crew under thumb, Lieutenant Fordragon included. While it’s been nice to see them in higher spirits, a relief after the ghost ships sent the crew into a superstitious pique, they still have work to do.

And now there’s this - the compass, whose mystery she cannot solve, the map, which makes no sense at all. The elf, only slightly less insufferable than previous, pretending not to notice her dimming irritation while reading the faded label on what she’s starting to fear is her second-to-last bottle of good whiskey until they hit port.

“Can I have some?” Sylvanas asks after a prolonged silence, ears perking up with the question.

It shocks her that the elf didn’t just take a swig, honestly, impertinent as she’s been since they fished her aboard.

“No.”

Surprisingly elegant hands deposit the bottle back atop the desk, Sylvanas pushing off the edge of it and starting to search through the drawers. With a broad gesture, she asks, “Do you have an abundance of paper?”

Jaina glances down to the deepest drawer, the bottom one, and the elf follows suit. They reach for the handle at the same time, their hands brushing awkwardly before she allows Sylvanas to pull it open in her stead. The elf is quick to pull out sheafs of parchment, circling back around the desk. Bending down to set it upon the floor, Sylvanas straightens somewhat to remove her boots, one at a time, and tosses them in the direction of the door. 

Crouching down on her heels, the elf starts to lay out parchment sheet by sheet, making a large section to work upon. Against her better judgment, the Lord Admiral catches up the bottle and the compass, making her way over to observe.

“This took me about four days in Silvermoon,” Sylvanas fills the silence as she straightens a finicky corner, laying the parchment flush. “But I had a lot more space to work with on the floor.”

“Do you not have desks where you’re from?”

Sylvanas scoffs, casting a sidelong look at her, “I prefer not to stoop.”

The scrutiny reminds her of her deck cadet days, and her shoulders square out of subconscious habit.

“I’ve been thinking about your maps,” Jaina admits as she kneels down beside the parchment. She could swear relief touches the elf’s features when she starts to speak at more length, “Why would another quel’dorei just _give_ you a map to mysterious treasure? For free. Why wouldn’t he want it for himself? And why would it need a bloody translation in the first place?”

The maps go down in the middle of a ring of parchment, the compass set on one corner.

“I’ll need your help with this if you want it to go faster,” Sylvanas encourages, bumping a shoulder into hers playfully.

A slight curl to the corner of her lips now, Jaina replies blithely, “Ask pretty please and I’ll consider it.”

With a full-blown grin now, Sylvanas nudges her with an elbow. “In the words of Lieutenant Fordragon, with two of us this’ll be a piece of piss.” 

She tries not to look amused, “While you were both fleecing the wages from my sailors and hoping I wouldn’t notice, you mean?”

“Oh no...Taelia had no part in that. That was all me,” Sylvanas sounds proud of that fact, her face lighting up even more as she glances over the maps and parchment. “She just helped with the language bit, which...you know. I find it rather fascinating, if you haven’t gathered that already.”

Jaina looks toward the door and scowls faintly, “You don’t say.” Bracing her hands on her knees, she asks, “So how are we going to do this?”

Catching up the bottle of whiskey and setting it where the parchment curls, Sylvanas explains, “First things first, we need to pin the paper to the floor the best we can. Secondly, Taelia and I have been on a first name basis since the start.” The elf reaches for the glass as well, glancing at her to ask slyly, “Why? Are you jealous?”

“Why would I be jealous?” It’s Jaina’s turn to scoff, eyeing the elf for a moment before averting her gaze back to the parchment. “Back to the maps, please. Stop getting distracted.”

“Stop being so distracting,” Sylvanas retorts, murmuring under her breath. “You asked.”

“Right.” Jaina clears her throat, a hint of pink to her cheeks, “Moving on.”

An hour later, the whiskey has been uncorked once more. Several half-filled glasses dot the curling edges of a mad scattering of sketches, numerical figures, and rough translations to - and from - Thalassian. She’s learning that the elf is actually quite brilliant, can see the break-throughs and set-backs in the tilt and droop of long ears, the little expressions that flit across mercurial features. That Sylvanas squints when she’s thinking intently, or sighs, or taps her knuckle against the deck. 

The elf is never still. Not ever. And seems to have taken a liking to her whiskey, despite bristling like a wet cat the first time she took a sip.

“This is horrible. I’m going to have to get you some Silvermoon wine before you pickle yourself,” Sylvanas informs her after the third little glass, making a face in spite of this.

“Why are you still drinking it then?” Jaina retorts with an actual laugh, leaning back on the palms of her hands to watch the elf more so than work on the task at hand.

“Because it’s yours and I want it,” Sylvanas shoots back, sticking her tongue between her teeth only slightly at her. Those look _sharp_. “Besides, aren’t I supposed to be a pirate?”

“I heard you’re a siren. Also a mermaid _and_ a prince,” Jaina points out, plucking a glass from the parchment before the elf can get to it. “I just think you’re an insufferable little shit.”

Dramatically, Sylvanas pantomimes being shot in the heart, down to sprawling across her lap in the throes of death. Cracking an eye after a few seconds, the elf teases, “Not even going to mourn my death?”

“I’m going to dance on your grave when we get to port,” Jaina answers bluntly, but pinches the elf’s cheek regardless. “I can’t believe you’re actually a prince. You look like a noodle.”

An ear twitches as Sylvanas looks up at her, looking positively mischievous. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Aren’t all Kul Tirans, you know…” the elf makes traces of an hourglass shape with her hands. “Sturdy peasant stock.”

She should move her. She really should. Push her right out of her lap and into the parchment. Instead, she taps the end of the elf’s nose and watches it wrinkle, stopping whatever impish thing is brewing between those pointed ears for the moment by asking, “So what’s with you and the Queen of Darnassus, anyway?”

Sylvanas is quiet, as if mulling over what to say, and rather than pull away settles in for the long haul, folding her arms behind her head as she looks up at Jaina. The elf observes after a time, “We have a long history. Tyrande is...very stubborn. Good, but. For the past hundred years or so, we’ve been having a...standing disagreement about my duties to the crown.”

Jaina fights the urge to smooth the frown from the corner of the elf’s lips, blaming it on the whiskey. Instead, she blinks slowly and repeats, “The past hundred years...”

“It’s like, you know when you’re about eight hundred and you have all these big ideas. Chase the horizon, have adventures. She understood more when I was younger, I think she thought I’d grow out of it over time,” Sylvanas admits as if eight centuries were a figure she could even remotely understand. As if seeing the confusion on her face, the elf says, “I don’t know what it is for humans. Teenage? Anyway, she gets on too well with my mother and they both have the same ideals.”

Jaina makes a face in understanding, feeling an unwelcome sort of camaraderie from the mention, “We’re going to need more whiskey if we’re talking about mothers.”

The elf reaches up to pat her cheek lightly and comforts, “There, there. Tell the noodle all about it.”

“Maybe not today,” Jaina asserts instead, glancing over the disarray of her cabin. The parchment and glasses and bits of pencil everywhere. “Why don’t we change topic to something more light-hearted?”

Sylvanas falls silent briefly, an almost comical look of vast concentration on the elf’s features before she asks, “If you weren’t the Lord Admiral, what would you want to be? Seems an awful lot of responsibility, that.”

A smile curls unbidden over Jaina’s features at the thought, it reminding her of the first time she cast a spell, a tidy bit of ice magic to impress her father. She’d strung snowflakes on all the windows for Winter Veil, and made miniature blizzards in the square for the Kul Tiran children to play in.

“I always wanted to be a mage,” Jaina admits slowly, leaning back on the heels of her hands a bit. Glancing down at the elf, she watches Sylvanas watching her with a sense of curiosity. “I wanted to study in Dalaran, all the Archmages were vying to have me on as their apprentice, even. But when my father went missing, my mother needed someone to lead the Admiralty. And Talia told you about Derek.”

“She did tell me about Derek,” Sylvanas answers smugly. “Derek sounds like fun.”

“Derek needs to keep his cock in his pants,” Jaina replies matter-of-factly. “And stop getting drunk in the harbour.”

“That’s quite a lot of pressure, in such a short amount of time,” the elf muses thoughtfully, ears shifting back a little. Her eyes look very blue in this light. “I wish I had what you have, in a way. You’ve done everything I couldn’t do for my mother. The determination to run the course life gives you and push your dreams aside for the good of your people.”

“That’s so depressing,” Jaina sighs, feeling her shoulders slump a little with the weight of it.

“You could always run away with me?” Sylvanas counters in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Ancient ruins and cursed treasure? A mage could come in handy. I’d even try my best to behave.”

“You wouldn’t.” 

“I would,” Sylvanas pushes up out of her lap, still half-leaned over her as they come eye-to-eye. “We could travel the world and get to know new cultures. Get to know how the world works, use that knowledge to make our nations better.” Then, with a cheeky smile, “Steal your mother’s ship?”

Jaina looks down her nose at the elf, observing almost begrudgingly, “I’m starting to like you.”

“I have that effect on women,” Sylvanas replies with a wink.

“Uh-huh,” Jaina intones. “Whatever you say. You may be a siren to my crew, but you are not to me.”

“No?” Sylvanas’s smile turns mischievous once more, drawing even a little bit closer as if in challenge. “Do you not think so? Are you not affected by my obvious charms, Miss Proudmoore?”

“Lord Admiral,” Jaina corrects with amusement, countering the movement by leaning in a bit herself and seeing the surprise in the other’s eyes at that. “And no.”

“Alright, _Lord Admiral_ ,” comes what seems an _overly suggestive_ response for their proximity, the elf’s blue-grey eyes lingering on her lips for perhaps a moment too long.

That smile is criminal. Tides. She’s doing it, too. Maybe there is a siren at play there, or maybe she just likes a challenge. It certainly isn’t that she finds the elf attractive. No. Definitely not. Nor that she’s actually starting to enjoy her company. 

She’s lying to herself now and she’s _fully aware_.

Sylvanas bites her lip and arches one of her eyebrows, almost as if daring her to do it.

So she plants a hand on the deck beside the elf and leans in closer, tilting in until their noses almost touch. Jaina keeps her voice even, and asserts lowly, “Call me Lord Admiral again, or I’ll have you keel-hauled.”

Sylvanas, close enough to taste the whiskey on her breath, teases back slyly as if knowing exactly what she’s doing, “ _Jaina_.”

There’s more than one way to shut her up, Jaina finds, as she closes the distance between them, and in her mind, declaring a decisive victory over their game when the elf makes a little sound of surprise against her lips. 

It shifts quickly as Sylvanas shifts a knee over her lap, straddling her hips and leaning up for an extra bit of height. Cupping her face in both hands to prevent a hasty retreat, the elf kisses her back. It’s soft, thorough, and tilting decidedly out of her control. She doesn’t really mind the loss of control, but she hadn’t thought to enjoy it this much, either.

She has a brief vision of Tyrande splattering her across the mid-deck like some sort of gnat.

It vanishes when their lips part and the kiss deepens, heat creeping up the back of her neck. Did she just make that sound? Sylvanas’s ears twitch to tell her yes. Yes, she did. She can feel the smirk against the corner of her mouth.

And then the door slams open.

“Lord Admiral-” Taelia starts to speak, blinks once and instead says. “Well, fuck.”

They all but scramble back from each other like teenagers caught necking behind the stalls in Mariner’s Row. Jaina’s face is scorchingly hot to the tips of her ears. She’s never been in this particular predicament before.

“Lieutenant Fordragon,” she slips back into the guise of Lord Admiral with an awkward clear of her throat. “We were just-”

“Yeah, I can see that,” the Lieutenant observes with a low whistle, looking between the two of them. “Looks like the elf was winning.”

“We finished the maps,” Jaina asserts flatly, straightening the front of her shirt.

“You finished the bottle,” Fordragon points out with a glance toward the now-emptied whiskey.

“No, you finished the map,” Sylvanas announces suddenly, scrambling around her to snatch up a piece of parchment now soaked-through with a bit of whiskey. The symbols on the front and back merge together, forming a focal point on the map. The location of the wreckage, “Brilliant.”

Brilliant.

It sure is something.

“Well, Lieutenant,” Jaina muses as she looks from the map slowly back to Taelia, and pushes up to her feet. “Let’s set a course for my father’s grave then, shall we?”

She pretends not to notice when the Lieutenant mouths _siren_ at the elf in parting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Chants* Smolvanas Smolvanas Smolvanas!
> 
> The Astrology of our ladies...
> 
> (Sylvanas - Leo, Jaina - Aries, Tyrande - Virgo)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my amazing wife @JunkerJackRabbit who managed to translate all of my ramblings.
> 
> Who here is ready for a smaller Sylvanas? Raise yo hands!
> 
> (Sylvanas 5'9 - Jaina 5'11 - Tyrande 7'1)
> 
> Co-creater @Junkerjackrabbit


End file.
